Rethinking Art Between the Wars: New Perspectives in Art History

In the interwar period art revealed itself as part of the social and ideological order. The work of art became a point of intersection for the modern, unstable and ambiguous world. Works of art produced in these decades reflect a range of discourses on power and subjectivity. They contribute to the foundation of the post-war development of aesthetic pluralism and point out the socially conditioned framings of the Fine Arts. During the last decades, research in the field of interwar art has reworked and reconceptualized existing notions on the period. This book offers four new approaches which also contribute to reflections on methodological questions regarding the changes in the discipline of Art History since the early 1970s. The articles discuss topics such as Le Corbusier's connection with the French fascist movement, the position of women in the avant-garde movement, Giorgio de Chirico's play with kitsch and avant-garde practices, and the semiotics of the surrealist image.